SNFU

The Ping Pong EP

by Andrew Johnson

Serious hilarity, energy, longevity…that pretty well sums up SNFU. These guys have been mainstays on the punk scene since the early 1980s, and they still play hard and fast every time out. In fact, they’re coming to my town tomorrow to play an all-ages matinee and will be back in the evening to do it all over again for all the folks who have been listening to them since way back in the day. And you can be sure that they’re still loading their own gear and still arguing with management about how they’ll be paid at the end of the night.

Why, you ask? Why still record and tour and endure endless hours on the road going from town to town? Well, despite being too short, the five song The Ping Pong EP certainly seems to provide one answer: they’re still into it. They’re still into playing at breakneck speed, making a lot of melodic noise and focusing more energy into one song than a lot bands manage to exert over an entire evening. Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t groundbreaking stuff, but then again its not meant to be. What you do get though is a super-tight band that can still play the kind of two-minute pop songs, like “I’m Your Carpet,” that leave you out of breath but wanting more. With its smart-funny lyrics, “I’m your carpet/ if you burn me/ I’ll burn you back,” “I’m Your Carpet” manages to turn punk’s eternal masochism on its head, without turning its back on punk. Then, playing in good anti-establishment fashion on the track “Quentin Tarantino Can’t Act,” they accept the time-honoured roll of taking the stuffing out of nice accepted icons by just calling it as they see it, and as they see it, the man can’t act. As I see it though, they sure can play. Look for them coming to your town soon.